LOWELL -- As the fifth generation to run his family's business, Ames Textiles Corp., Edward Brooks Stevens "embodied the textile industry in America," according to Karl Spilhaus, chairman of the American Textile History Museum.

Stevens, a past chairman of the museum's board, could come up with no better place than the Mill City, whose early history was shaped by the burgeoning fabric market, to tell the story of the nation's textile industry to future generations.

"He was instrumental in getting the ATHM board to buy the Kitson Machine Shop building, which the museum is now located in," recalled Stevens' son, Jonathan Ames Stevens, president and CEO of the museum on Dutton Street.

The elder Stevens, who died Saturday at 91, "had the vision to take the museum from a small research institution into a major exhibition museum that tells America's unique story through the art, science and history of textiles," his son said.

Founded in 1960 in North Andover by Edward Stevens' great-aunt, Carolyn Stevens Rogers, the museum had 12,000 visitors last year and 3,700 for the recent spacesuit exhibit.

"It's a really special museum. It's part of the transformation of Lowell in the last 10 to 15 years. That is my father's highest legacy, in my opinion," Jonathan Stevens said.

His father, born in Lowell in 1922, grew up on Mansur Street in a home later owned by Niki and Paul Tsongas.

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He was a great-great-grandson of Gen. Benjamin Franklin Butler, an attorney who also served as a congressman from Essex County in the 1860s and was the founder of Ames Textiles.

Edward Stevens attended The Moody School in Lowell and graduated from the Groton School. As a Harvard University freshman, he went skiing with friends at Mt. Cranmore and met his future wife, the former Ann Johnson, waiting in line for the ski lift.

Stevens interrupted his education at Harvard to join the Army during World War II and then married Johnson.

"He was transferred to Ft. Campbell in Kentucky and she was able to join him there," his son said.

When Stevens was shipped off to France with the 20th Armored Division of the Army, Ann stayed with his parents.

In 1946, with the war over, the young couple moved to Tewksbury and Stevens joined the family business, where he had spent summers working in the mill as a child.

"One of his first responsibilities was to run a yarn operation in what is now the Lawrence Manufacturing Company," Stevens said.

That building, near LaLacheur Park, is one of several local mills which have been converted to condominium use, drawing new residents to the city.

At the mill, "Stevens had to spin a sweater yarn they were making at that plant, working with very old machinery," his son said.

In addition to Jonathan Stevens, Edward and Ann Stevens had three other children, Peter, Lynn and Jane, who were raised in Tewksbury and Andover.

As a young father with a key role at Ames Textile Corp., Stevens served as president of the board of directors for the Lowell Boys & Girls Club. His association with the club, where he was named an honorary trustee in 2010, spanned six decades.

"He did a lot for the club. He was a generous supporter through this year," said Joseph Hungler, the club's executive director.

At Ames Textiles, which was founded by Butler and stewarded by six generations of the same family for more than 145 years before it was sold in 2010, Stevens worked his way through the ranks to become president and chairman of the board.

"My father was instrumental in expanding to Europe. We were spinning and knitting cotton in separate mills and selling it to people who were coating it with polyvinyl chloride for the auto industry. It was also going into Ford, Chrysler and GM cars. We developed the fabrics and finishing techniques here in Lowell," Jonathan Stevens said.

In 1998, Stevens and a textile-industry colleague, Roger Milliken, purchased the 1860s-era Butler Flag at Sotheby's, which was commissioned by his ancestor and was presented to Abraham Lincoln as a token of the nation's manufacturing success. The flag, which Butler made for The U.S. Bunting Co., was preserved at the museum's former textile conservation center.

Today the museum has a collection of costumes and apparel that dates to the 1750s and a library where historians from as far as Finland, Italy and Japan have done textile research.

"Ed Stevens was passionate about the museum. He got me involved in it, as he did so many others. His committed work was an example to us all. It was very hard to say 'no' to him as he was only ever asking that we do a fraction of what he was doing," said Jan Russell, Milliken's daughter and a museum board member.

Stevens always made time for his large family, which also included five grandchildren and and five great-grandchildren.

"Ed loved the camaraderie of competition. He got me my first golf lessons. He loved telling stories about the woodchucks that invaded his garden or the tomatoes he grew," said cousin Josh Minor.

In the 1950s and 60s, "he and my mother were the first on the floor at any dance party. He was referred to as Conga Ed," recalled his son.

"He had a real zest for life."

"The American Textile History Museum owes its existence to him more than any other person. Ed was a great person and a great leader. He gave enormously of his time and his resources and bore his legacy very responsibly," Spilhaus said.

A division of Ames Textiles, Game Time Fabrics, established the color standards for all NFL teams and numerous big-time college teams, from the Harvard Crimson to the Alabama Crimson Tide.

"We developed the Patriots blue and the green in the Green Bay Packers uniforms. We had to have a large consistency in our colors over 15 years," Jonathan Stevens said.

A director of the State Street Bank and a trustee of the Lahey Clinic, Edward Stevens also served on the boards of the United Way of the Merrimack Valley and Ironstone Farm's Challenge Unlimited program for children and adults with disabilities.

Stevens first began his association with Ironstone Farm as a volunteer with the Executive Service Corps of New England, which helped nonprofit agencies raise funds for service programs and to develop their boards and business plans, said Ironstone Farm Executive Director Dee Dee O'Brien.

"He was a philanthropist, but he didn't just give money," recalled O'Brien, noting that the board moved its meetings to the assisted-living facility where Stevens was in hospice care at the end of his life, so he could still attend meetings.

During the 2007-08 recession, Ironstone Farm had piloted an early-intervention therapeutic program for children that was successful, but the funds to continue it were not available.

"Ed said, 'it's our job to make it work and find the money so we can not just continue the program, but grow it,' " O'Brien noted.

In addition to putting up some of his own funds, Stevens sent out letters to friends and colleagues challenging them to match his donation. Later, he brought in another donor to spearhead funding for an indoor arena that allowed the farm to continue its programs in the winter.

He wrote an autobiography called The Time of My Life about a decade ago, edited by his daughter-in-law, Priscilla Stevens.

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